This movie was an extremely low budget feature (very well produced however), shot on a very tight schedule with a skeleton crew. That said there was a really great deal of coordination between the directors, the production designer, and myself in order to build as much of the look into the sets as possible.

The film was shot on an f55 to 4K XAVC S-Log3. On set we were viewing the onboard Rec709-Type A LUT. We originally tested different workflows including RAW but settled on this as the most efficient and cost effective given our budget and our needs. The name of the game on this show was speed and efficiency and while I did experiment with making custom LUTS it became overly complicated (I was pulling my own focus and gaffing with a limited crew).

As far as the look on set, my philosophy was to get the 709 as close as possible to the final look with lighting and exposure and monitor the LOG signal that you see at the start of every correction to make sure we gave ourselves a lot of options. As much as I would love to take the time and make perfect images in camera, when you have radically changing lighting conditions, a lot of scenes to shoot each day, and very little time to make decisions, having the extra information to work with really makes a difference.

It is deceiving seeing the LOG images at the beginning of the correction and then comparing to the final images. On set the actors were seeing environments very similar to the finished grade. The LOG does show just how much information this camera can grab at 1250. This being done on a very tiny lighting budget (I think $1000 for the entire 18 day shoot) did mean that sometimes I did have to have a "fix it in post" mentality. I'm not ashamed of it, and I knew that with the f55 and the support of a skilled colorist, I could move quickly and make decisions that benefited the production.

As far as the teal and orange look. I totally understand the overall vibe people have about this but honestly it's simply a matter of dealing with the two dominant color temperatures of light. This is a horror film that mostly takes place during the day and the dynamic between artificial and natural light, interiors and exteriors, real and imagined was thematic link in the script.

Fundamentally we see color reels like this, and there certainly is a lot of skill and craft that comes from the post production but the color decisions start in the writer's head and manifest themselves through all the key departments in the film. There was a lot of intelligent decision making on behalf of our very talented and resourceful production designer, Monique Thomas, that is the core of these images.

The last thing that needs to be taken into account is this feature is composed of over a thousand shots, and Taylre gave extreme attention to detail to each one. That really is the bread and butter of a professional colorist, I like to think of it akin to the restaurant business, everyone can learn to make a really good dish but serving hundreds of them to demanding customers day in and day out is the mark of a true professional.

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